SoundRTS is a real-time strategy audio game. I am trying to put in a sound-only game the fun from RTS games (Warcraft, Command And Conquer, etc).

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

[SoundRTS] project status

Here is a summary of the current plans for SoundRTS. Feel free to comment, especially about the viability of 1.1 alpha 6 as a stable version.

The next evolutions might be more chaotic, so I will probably rename the current latest 1.1 alpha 6 to stable 1.1.0, since it's probably being used as a stable version by many players anyway. The next alpha would be 1.2 alpha 0. This way you would have something to try soon without losing the not so bad current version, and new players wouldn't be misguided to download 1.0.1 anymore.

I might also add an archive folder to the website so the current stable 1.0.1 would still be easily available, even if not recommended anymore.

In 1.2 alpha, I will try to solve a fundamental problem of SoundRTS: the world map lacks continuity: squares and paths to connect them. If I am successful, there would be only one space, even if I will try to keep the ease of play that squares provide. It would be possible to block a bottleneck by placing footmen accurately, and placing archers behind them. Building walls would make sense. The simulation would be probably simplified. The problem is to adapt the AI and make sure that the game interface is not too complex.

In 1.2 alpha, I might completely remove recorded text and use SAPI to allow more efficient and flexible messages, but it might cause (at least temporarily) the loss of some platforms (Linux, Mac) and of the languages for which I don't have the text. I apologize in advance for the inconveniences but it is the price to pay in order to limit the ever growing complexity of the SoundRTS beast. The positional text will be lost in the process too (at least temporarily).

Allowing several races is a priority, because sooner or later they will have to be implemented, and before that happens, balancing the new units in one race would be a lost effort.

There might be confusion when two competing players control the same race, but even in this case it might be possible to make the units sound different depending on their "ally" status (using the "if_me" keyword in style.txt). But it might not be necessary.

At the moment, I have added 2 units: the priest and the necromancer, and I have planned to move some of the abilities of the mage to the priest, and I have made more changes in the existing units. This won't be good, but with 1.1 alpha 6 still available, it might be OK to play with the stats again.

I have updated the manual and added automatic generation of the description of the units, buildings and abilities from the rules.txt file. I will try to keep the manual updated.